People have been posting words to define their upcoming year. I hope that my word will be discipline followed closely by dedication.

This year has by no means been a bad year for me. People have been writing about how all these stars have died, David Bowie did hit me hard as did Carrie Fisher, but honestly people die every year. People have been troubled by the election and the fate of the world to come. Being in Italy I feel like I have been sheltered a bit away from all the craziness. I managed to move all 21,000 pounds of things we owned from Germany to Italy and I have unpacked a lot of it, just don’t look in my garage. I also had my fourth baby. My little Roly Poly who will be five months in the morning.

But I feel like this year wasn’t productive at all. Look at my resolutions post from last year and I don’t think you will see any progress. I am not trying to get too down about it though. What I lacked this year was discipline. I feel like every day held no structure and I had no goals except to make it to bed time.

I barely crafted, I didn’t workout, my house is still a disaster, I feel like I gained zero knowledge, and I feel like I need to give my kids more attention. So this year I am going to try to hunker down and relearn discipline. I was in the military for ten years, you’d think I would know what the word means, but I feel like I fell off the wagon hard when I got out of the military about 4 years ago. I want it back. I don’t want to be the sloppy SAHM anymore. (not judging anyone here, it is just how I feel about myself)

I have had company here for two weeks and we have two more weeks left of the visit. They have been nothing but wonderful, but I haven’t put attention to anything except their visit and enjoying the holiday. So I already feel late to the game before the year even starts. But I will do my best and if worst comes to worst my new year may no begin until Feb 🙂

So as the above shows, I have been traveling. We were in Venice yesterday and went to the Burano which is the island that specializes in lace. We got a baptismal gown for Roly Poly. I didn’t really get any pictures though since I was wearing Roly Poly and couldn’t really carry a camera.

We also went to Nove which is a town that sells ceramics. I got a lovely cake stand there. The Husband demanded a cake so I obliged. This is a Guinness cake with homemade cream cheese frosting. So tasty. It didn’t last. It looked even more tasty on my cake stand:)

The store sells to Williams and Sonoma, Banana Republic, Butler’s Pantry, and Tiffany’s. It is called La Ceramica VBC. I want to go again to get some more things, but this was just a quick trip since we wanted to go to another town afterwards.

The other town was called Bassano del Grappa. Not surprisingly they make grappa there. It was a beautiful day. I wouldn’t mind going again one day to walk around.

We also had a nice time enjoying the Christmas pageant my kids were in. Isn’t that the cutest shepherd and how about that narrator?

I want to focus a lot more on things like this in the upcoming year. So discipline will be a big thing. I have my Erin Condren planner all ready to go. Also my bullet journal, though I need to actually plan it out a lot and maybe pencil things in before I get to the pen on it. I have a lot of things that I hope to track and make sure that I am on task. To also keep track I have my traveler’s notebook. I have been using it for a few weeks so I think I am finally ready to commit to get a nicer cover for it. It is the perfect size to keep in my purse:)

Of course all of this will also take dedication. My second word. I think they will go hand in hand. I hope that between all of these things I can get all my chores done and still have time to get my crafting done. This year went my so quickly for me. I am hoping for a slow down and to truly get things. With discipline and dedication I hope to have a productive 2017!

Okay so resolutions. I do have some. Pretty much all from last year, but also a few more. More attention to the kids is the main one. In order to get everything done I am going to try for less Facebook and things like that. More books of words and less book of faces.